Memory Alpha:Ten Forward/Archive 2005
Earth Ship from ENT I can't seem to find an article on the Earth ship that found alongside the Intrepid (Earth) in "The Expanse" and "Twilight" - the triangular shaped one. I noticed a mirror version of it also appeared in the title sequence of "In a Mirror, Darkly". There is a line of speculation under Neptune class, but we should come up with a naming resolution for this vessel so that it can be included in M/A. --Gvsualan 11:21, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) Article Tense I've been looking through are various policies but cannot seem to find any established rules on article tense (past, present, future). The examples I've seen used in the guidelines show both past and present, and I've noticed most articles around here are in past tense - as are the ones I typically write. I noticed that User:Mark 2000 had a concern about this, and I thought I would ask you about the scenario. --Gvsualan 07:43, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) :I believe a general consensus for past-tense was reached in discussion -- however, policy pages are slow to follow discussion sometime, so I'm not sure where this ended up getting added. If you and I discuss this with a few other administrators and archivists, I'm sure we can find a way to disseminate this style policy. I think Ten Forward might be the best place to do this. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 07:46, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) See, I couldn't even find that discussion. Just this. --Gvsualan 10:05, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::This is connected to some discussions about our "point of view" that we had in the past - though I can't find a central location for that discussion, either. Basically, we're talking about events happening in three different centuries (with some special cases happening even outside that range). The only point of view that makes sense for MA, in my opinion, is one of a person existing "inside" the Trek universe and "after" the last of the events we are writing about. In this case, it only makes sense to write about everything in the past tense. -- Cid Highwind 13:51, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) :::What about background info, and distant future events like the Enterprise-J, etc.? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 22:17, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::::That's difficult to answer, because (in the case of Enterprise-J, for example), we're not only talking about something that happens later, but about something that might happen later, an alternate timeline. For the sake of simplicity, we might want to choose to write all articles in past tense, but it would be equally valid to write about possible future events in future tense, as someone from the 24th century would do. What do you all prefer? -- Cid Highwind 15:43, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) I also read somewhere that the past tense was preferred over future and present tense but I cannot remember where. I think it had something to do with MA being a library and that in this context past tense would be preferable. That was also the reason why I changed the Nog article to past tense. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to write an episode summary like a book, in present time like you are experiencing it. As far as I am concerned episode summaries would be the only articles valid for present time. -- Q 06:39, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) We should write all articles in the present. This is what the books say to do. Alternatively, we could write everything in the future now and in the 22nd century, start changing the tense to past. By the late 24th century, almost all articles will be in the past. I prefer the first idea better. As an example, last night, I wrote in Hoshi Sato (mirror) she poisons Jonathan Archer (mirror) and becomes Empress Hoshi Sato Ⅰ. Within hours, it became she poisoned Jonathan Archer (mirror) and became Empress Hoshi Sato I. # She will not do those things for 1½ centuries. # ¿What is wrong with the Roman Numeral Ⅰ as opposed to the letter I? — — Ŭalabio 21:48, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :You're looking at this from completely the wrong perspective. The perspective of Memory Alpha is that of the late 24th century - ie, several years past Star Trek: Nemesis, so that all events that have happened in the regular Trek timeline have already happened. And, what books? The Star Trek Encyclopedia, the only comparable reference work, takes the same view. The only exception to the past tense rule should be things that aren't a time-specific reference, ie, saying "Phasers are directed-energy weapons..." or "Archer IV is a planet...", and similar. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 22:35, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :: The books are the writing manuals from University. Basically in fiction, one writes things happening at the '' now '' of the characters in the present with things happening in the future of the characters happening in future and things happening in the past as past. When writing about fiction, on uses the same conventions. As an example, in the '' the Trouble with Tribbles, '' tribbles over run Deep Space K-7 and the [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) | ' USS '' Enterprise '' (NCC-1701). ' ]] — — Ŭalabio 04:43, 5 May 2005 (UTC) :::Don't miss the point -- in the 2380s, the tribbles overran K-7 over 120 years ago -- and Sato poisoned Archer in the mirror universe over 225 years ago. We are writing from a point-of-view of the late 24th century -- everything up to the end credits of Nemesis happened in the past. :::From the point of view of the Nemesis era, all of these things are behind us. That's the tone a normal encyclopedia reference writer would take -- we are trying to emulate a normal encyclopedia of the year 2380+. (and also, not to write fiction prose as may be recommended by writing guides, but a reference about a fictional topic. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 05:17, 5 May 2005 (UTC) :::: So Memory-Alpha.Org has its servers on the planetoid housing Memory Alpha in the closing days of the 24th century. —— Ŭalabio 06:23, 5 May 2005 (UTC) ::::: And another thing, from your argument we should be writing these things not in the past OR present tense, but in the future tense. If your arguement is that these things haven't happened yet then technically neither the present or past tense would be correct, only the future would be. That seems pretty obviously unworkable so the convention is to use the past tense in keeping with encyclopedic style.Logan 5 19:06, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) : A big part of this, or perhaps related but separate, is just the generally poor use of grammar on so many pages. The use of past tense, especially in English, is far more standard than all the verb conjugations of the present tense. It also makes for far easier reading and standardization across articles when you have some users who are either just bad writers, or may be using English as a second language and clearly aren't familiar with the use of passives, etc in the present tense. Beyond that, I agree with the general point that encyclopedic references - and not fiction - take a historic viewpoint. No one is saying these events have already happened, but only that we are writing from the point of view as if they had already happened. It's also worth pointing out that all of the editions of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, which is clearly an inspiration for this site, used the past tense just as any Encyclopedia would. Logan 5 18:58, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) Connection refused I noticed several times that when I was working on MA I could not get a connection to it. I have got the error "connection refused to memory-alpha.org" (or something to that effect) when I wanted to refresh a page or to connect to MA itself. If I tried it again after some time I could connect to MA. Anymore people who noticed this behaviour ? -- Q 19:58, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC) :I had a similar problem earlier today. In fact it's happened to me several times recently, so I too await someone with more information's responce. -AJHalliwell 06:47, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) Expanding the Timeline of Star Trek production I would say that an insignificant fraction of the dates "within" the Star Trek universe POV occur with months or with months and days -- this is why we don't wikilink "October 21, 2154" as Wikipedia does -- there wouldn't be enough information to create a separate article -- likewise I don't see 2154 being subdivided into January 2154, February 2154 any time soon. Since we aren't going to use these possible article headings for "in-universe" articles, I was wondering about the validity of creating some type of redirect structure where an article like May 1967 or December 1991 would lead back to a timeline page (1967 productions as a list page?) to show the order of release for Star Trek episodes, movies, books, games, novels and DVDs. This way, w would avoid cross-pollinating "in" and "out" universe references -- for example, if you link to 1967 it won't tell you anything about the episodes which were produced that year, etc, but if we link the month and the year we could direct the link to a more appropriate venue. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 19:12, 1 May 2005 (UTC) :Agreed, I like that format and an expanded timeline is something we've needed for a while. Redirects could be added to the Notes section of the Trek POV articles. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 19:22, 1 May 2005 (UTC) ::I plan to get started soon -- i've thought about permutations for the titles -- i think "YEAR productions" should be fine for each -- each article would have 12 redirects, for each month that occurs in the dates. Should i phrase them spelled out October 1989, or leave them as stated in episode pages: "1989-10-21" ? :::That is tricky... Wikipedia uses the October 1989 format, but the 1989-10 format is what is used in the episode pages... perhaps stick with the spelt out version for the actual page, and create a useful redirect with the numbers? -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 02:44, 3 May 2005 (UTC) Canon Is information from deleted scenes seen as canon? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 23:36, 2 May 2005 (UTC) :I'm not exactly sure myself. We have several articles like USS Hemingway, USS Ticonderoga, Martin Madden, and Denab system, mostly from deleted scenes from Star Trek: Nemesis. However, the scenes also claim Beverly Crusher left to head Starfleet Medical, and I've been adamant about keeping that as background information in Crusher's article. To be fair, all of the aforementioned articles are clearly tagged as coming from deleted scenes... -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 02:50, 3 May 2005 (UTC) Pages needing attention We are approaching somewhat of a problem point with Memory Alpha:Pages needing attention. Each day, more articles are tagged with and its variants - and yet, they don't seem to be disappearing off that status as quickly. I have just finished classifying many of the standard messages, recategorising where more specific templates are appropriate, removing where no talk page details exist. This is how we stand: *Category:Memory Alpha pages needing attention - 43 articles *Category:Memory Alpha pages needing citation - 6 articles *Category:Memory Alpha inaccurate articles - 10 articles *Category:Memory Alpha incomplete articles - 146 articles! *Category:Memory Alpha unformatted articles - 12 articles Whilst it seems that some of these numbers are low, a lot of them have been lingering around for a while without resolution. I believe this is because they are tagged and, once off RC, aren't noticed again. So, I have a few suggestions/points to make: #Please classify articles with the appropriate template: , , , , . Please try to restrict to where more than one action is required, or where the attention required doesn't fit any of the other four. #Remember to indicate on the talk page what needs fixing. This is only the case for pna, inaccurate and incomplete - the other two have been modified to remove reference to talk pages, since they don't really need further explanation. #If adding a page to one of the PNA categories, have a look through said categories to see if there's anything you can fix. Unformatted and cite are the easiest to deal with - inaccurate and incomplete require more work, pna may depend on what is needed. #Have a look through Category:Memory Alpha incomplete articles asap, and see if there are any pages you know you can help with. A copy of the Encyclopedia, if you have it, is enough to help deal with some of these. For others, with major requirements, try checking the scripts as well. #If you tag an article which you think requires major work, add it to your watchlist. Check back in a few days or weeks to see if improvement has been made. At a later point you may have the time to deal with the problems yourself, or be able to call further attention to them. I will probably do this tally once every month or two months to see where we stand. Many thanks. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 18:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC) New Swedish version Johan Grauers recently requested a Swedish edition of Memory Alpha. He has now created the basic pages required by the new language edition policy, and Jason Richey has set up the wiki for this today at memory-alpha.org/sv. Please help out with the new community there if you can, and add interlanguage links between there and here once some articles are created. Let me know if there are any problems with the new version. Angela (talk) 23:50, 5 May 2005 (UTC) Associate IP? How do you associate your edits under an IP with your username? -- Dmsdbo 13:24, 7 May 2005 (UTC) Wiki color scheme The color scheme of Memory Alpha hurts my eyes. I can hardly read the text against the dark background, in particular the dark blue links. The other skin choices under preferences are no good, either, since they don't have the same layout as the MonoBook. Could another skin be created, identical to MonoBook except that the colors are reversed? (As an example, see the Wikipedia.) —LCARS 23:28, 6 May 2005 (UTC) :You can have your own skin see . I have done it too, because I cannot see the red links on the dark ground, so I brightened them up, same for the changes on the pages -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 08:36, 7 May 2005 (UTC) ::That's perfect! Thank you. —LCARS 21:52, 7 May 2005 (UTC) ::Well, it is perfect for those who want to play around skins and style sheets, but it doesn't help the casual user. The blues are not generally a problem for me, (though the "visited" links are slightly too dark). It is the red links that hurt my eyes, I can barely see the words without serious straining. Just my two cents. ::P.S. I love this site. I'm so glad you guys are doing this! :: T'Play(talk) 04:32, 9 May 2005 (UTC) How does a user actually activate a different colour scheme? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 20:42, 10 May 2005 (UTC) :Make sure you're logged in, and then go to the page "User:user name/monobook.css". In your case, User:Defiant/monobook.css. Editing this page will allow you to override the default CSS definitions, which are found at MediaWiki:Monobook.css. With a little trial and error, you can find and replace the specific color codes for various elements of the wiki. Here are two examples to help you set it up: Kobi's is pretty straightforward. Mine is way more drastic a change from the default. Notice the tags at the beginning and end. —LCARS 21:55, 10 May 2005 (UTC) That's great, thanks! --Defiant | ''Talk'' 12:20, 11 May 2005 (UTC) Redirect/Piped link policy? I think it is time to reconsider our policy regarding redirects and piped links. In the past, we often deleted unused redirects (Immediate deletion exception #1), although the deletion policy as well as at the same time state that deletion should occur "only if the problems they cause outweigh their advantages". At the same time, sometimes piped links are used that simply don't make much sense, probably because a redirect using the same titles would have been deleted immediately. A good example for this is Tarquin's people on Delphic Expanse. Should there ever be an article about Tarquin's people, there's no easy way to find this piped link and change it to the correct target. Using a redirect from Tarquin's people to Tarquin's homeworld would be much better in this case. I think we should allow more redirects than we do now. Immediate deletion should be reserved for redirects that absolutely don't make sense, are offensive (as described on ) or are misspellings. On the other hand, piped links should be restricted to variants of the title/object (such as: Enterprise, Enterprise-D, NCC-1701-D, ...). What do you think? -- Cid Highwind 11:34, 11 May 2005 (UTC) :Good point: an example I may want to introduce into the discussion is MA/en's policy for early history, in MA/de we have redirects for every century, so that if we might consider to split the page we don't have to search every post; misspellings are indeed to be deleted, that is also why I don't understand the reason to keep Geordi LaForge -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 11:56, 11 May 2005 (UTC) ::As you can see from Memory Alpha:Pages for immediate deletion, I have been trying to support the retention of useful redirects. Perhaps we should concentrate on expanding the Memory Alpha:List of useful redirects -- make it list every redirect that exists, or has been "patrolled" -- basically create a manifesto of redirects someone has preferred to keep at some point -- and to open discussion if anyone thinks a redirect or series of redirects is inappropriate. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 18:19, 12 May 2005 (UTC) List reordering I've noticed that some users have been reformatting lists from this style: *TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint" *DS9: "Emissary" *TNG: "All Good Things..." to a style like this: *TNG **"Encounter at Farpoint" **"All Good Things..." *DS9 **"Emissary" Was there ever a vote or a consensus to move over to this new style that I may have missed? I don't find anything particularly wrong with the new style... my only major issue is that episodes become segregated by series rather than chronological order, which is especially bad for things which appeared over multiple series and movies. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 20:06, 21 May 2005 (UTC) :I think an effort should be made to find lists that are chronologically ordered and maintain the older style. :I like the newer style for removing excessive occurrences of "TNG" and such in longer multi-series lists. I didn't think I'd need a vote to remove extra links -- it is MA policy to remove excess links like the repeated ENTs and VOYs in these lists. Although other users discussed this with me on talk pages, i think the consensus comes as that, when this style is added to an article, it is usually maintained there as the simplest possible ordering of the information. I decided to Be bold and add some lists like these to see how they would work. :You are absolutely right, however, that chronologically ordered lists like the example above should be maintained in the older style to remain as informative as possible. I think it might be worth adding a disclaimer to the Memory Alpha:Manual of Style cautioning users not to disturb the order of the list when multiple series' episodes are interspersed chronologically, and to only institute a simpler style if the list is sorted by series. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 20:45, 21 May 2005 (UTC) ::So should we keep it like the first style if chronological order is desired, or do something like this: ::*TNG ::**"Encounter at Farpoint" ::**"The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" ::**"The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" ::*DS9 ::**"Emissary" ::**"Battle Lines" ::*TNG ::**"The Pegasus" ::**"All Good Things..." ::I'd be content with this format, in order to both preserve the chronological order and be consistent with the other list styles. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' Okay here is a good question, I think. What do you mean by chronologically? The episode/movie production chronology or the in-Trek universe chronology. I was attempting to reorder the Excelsior class appearances, and in doing so, there was the difficulty of deciding in the appearance of several ships, if whether to organize them by their episodic appearances or their Trek-history appearances. This is especially difficult in cases where ships are shown "out of time", like having the Excelsior and Enterprise-B appearances falling in the middle of TNG/DS9 and VOY's timeline. Below are the two examples of what I mean (sorry it's so long). :Production Chronology: *Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' **''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' *TNG: ** "Encounter at Farpoint" ** "Where No One Has Gone Before" ** "The Child" *Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'' *TNG: ** "Tin Man" ** "The Offspring" ** "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" ** "The Drumhead" * Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country *TNG: ** "Ethics" ** "Chain of Command, Part I" ** "Chain of Command, Part II" *DS9: ** "Emissary" *TNG: ** "Preemptive Strike" *Star Trek Movies: ** Star Trek: Generations *DS9: ** "The Way of the Warrior" ** "By Inferno's Light" *VOY: ** "Flashback" *DS9: ** "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" *VOY: ** "Relativity" ::OR :Trek Universe Chronology: *Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' **''Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home'' **''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'' **''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country'' *VOY: ** "Flashback" *Star Trek Movies: **''Star Trek: Generations'' *TNG: ** "Encounter at Farpoint" ** "Where No One Has Gone Before" ** "The Child" ** "Tin Man" ** "The Offspring" ** "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" *DS9: ** "Emissary" *TNG: ** "The Drumhead" ** "Ethics" ** "Chain of Command, Part I" ** "Chain of Command, Part II" *TNG: ** "Preemptive Strike" *VOY: ** "Relativity" *DS9: ** "The Way of the Warrior" Although I realize the "Emissary", "Flashback", and "Relativity" appearances are debatable, would it just be best to leave all of the TOS Movie appearances together? --Gvsualan 13:29, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) Subject: Alien Identification Source: Ds9 Episode: Business as Usual Greetings all. Within the season 5 Deep Space Episode : Business as Usual, Quark has dealings with a ruthless human arms dealer by the name of Hagath. Multiple times within the episode, firstly when the Hagath character is introduced to the episode, we see a female alien companion of Hagaths introduced to Quark as "Talura". Might anyone be able to identify Taluras race? : I don't believe her species was ever identified. She was just described, according to the script, as: "a statuesque and disquietingly beautiful female alien (a la the Boslic Captain)." This of course does not mean she was a Boslic, unless a side-by-side comparison indicates otherwise, and that shes just some otherwise random female with a similar stature. That's all I got.--Gvsualan 08:18, 28 May 2005 (UTC) List of people into categories Yesterday, a registered user created Category:Klingons based on my supercategory suggestion Category:People -- basically, on Memory Alpha:Category tree suggestions, there have been no objections to a category based on the list of people :(Cid Highwind started the precedent for using a lists article to seed a list category in the original "category suggestions" talk page. All of these are populated lists are approved to be categorized under the terms of the suggestion. IMO any group of people with more than 20 known & named members is probably ripe for categorization -- whether it be an organization/unit, species or service.(examples of categories enacted already based on this suggestion are Category:USS Voyager personnel; Category:Humans; Category:Starfleet personnel). I though it might be a good idea to use ten-forward to run this by the community, since this seems to be the beginning of a major categorization effort, there are dozens of affiliations that people could be categorized under, so I want to see any additional suggestions made now, before we commit to these actions and beginning using bots or archivist efforts to categorize these articles. Main on my mind is the fact that some characters will be highly multicategorized, if they served in a few starship crews or are members of more than one species (shocking, but true). does anyone see any difficulties, or is this beneficial? (i've found it to be fairly useful -- Spock for example is human, Vulcan, NCC-1701 personnel and Starfleet personnel, so he is extensively cross reference). If there are no objections, perhaps a bot-operator could begin the categorization effort in a couple of days, or sooner or later depending on the consensus of the community. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 18:30, 31 May 2005 (UTC) : I also noticed someone (an IP user) created the Category:Andorians - I added all of the Andorians to the list, but now, in response to your suggestion of "any group of people with more than 20 known", should we delete it, as there are only 12 named Andorians? --Gvsualan 20:11, 31 May 2005 (UTC) ::Not sure on this -- we have a few other categories with only a few entries, perhaps we should allow all 20+ lists to become categories automatically, and call for consensus on less than 20 people categories -- andorians seem to be important enough to warrant this, especially since there will be a few lists of unnamed people still to be categorized (and possibly to fill out an unnamed Andorians list, although a few others will be listed elsewhere (the Andorian Avenger helmsman will be under mirror universe people and the Andorian extras in TMP will be under USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel) -- for example, there are unnamed vulcans and unnamed humans in the USS Voyager personnel list, so i categorized that under each species also - - the category will provide a link to all ship personnel lists that had an unnamed member of that species. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 20:19, 31 May 2005 (UTC) Talk:Zoe McLellan Adding offsite photos to articles -- is this a violation of a policy? -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 02:56, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) :No rule says that images must be on Memory-Alpha. I see no reason not to link to external images. — — Ŭalabio 08:16, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) :It's a violation of common courtesy and netiquette, certainly. Hotlinking images steals bandwidth. In addition, we need the images to be uploaded to our server so we can include the proper copyright references and citations. Memory Alpha:Image use policy doesn't say anything about hotlinking purely because it is expected that you upload the images here. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 11:16, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) *Clearly not all are thinking that way, said note should be added. Tyrant 03:13, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)Tyrant Out-dated Image use policy? Currently, our image policy states: "Generally, no more than one or two images should be used in an article; three images might be acceptable for some long articles." While this may be acceptable for average pages, there are numerous examples of articles for which three images as a maximum is simply not enough. Examples are long episode summaries and pages of main characters. Checking out our Featured Article's list, one would notice practically all of these pages contain far more than three images. I would suggest to revise this rule, stating no article may have more than three images that are article-specific. While a page would than be allowed to have more images (though one should not go overboard on image use, of course), it would limit the number of images uploaded specifically for that page. For example, an image showing two main characters can be used on the pages of both characters under "Personal relationships", as well as on the page the image was screencaptured from. This way, an image is/can be used on at least three pages. Ottens 17:12, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I tried to address a similar issue here last month... based on recent discussions on the Talk:Guinan and Memory Alpha:Images for deletion pages, I think we should seriously reevaluate our use of images, particularly when it comes to the areas I mentioned. Just for example, do we really need more than one image on pages like USS Fredrickson or Runabout (Enterprise-D)? Are images other than generic Excelsior or runabout pictures even needed on those pages? For the Fredrickson, there is also another image depicting it on Federation tug... why not combine the two images into one? Similarly, there are now three separate images about the Enteprise-D runabout, including a superflous one showing it explode on "Timescape." Many episode and character pages are similar... on William T. Riker, there are two images of him from Nemesis, one while he was still a commander and another with the simple addition of a captain's rank insignia. One could definitely go. I think we should also redefine the image policy to state that most small articles should be restricted to one image unless there is something else that needs to be illustrated and cannot be adequately described with text, in order to avoid choking the page. Images like those on the Guinan page may be getting to that point; maybe keep the images of Picard and Guinan and Q and Guinan because those relationships were important, but we know what the other main characters look like, so there's no real need to show them together with Guinan. Also, if minor subjects such as one-off starship appearances or the like can be combined into the same image without getting too confusing, that should be done as well. For episodes, only pivotal moments which cannot be otherwise described should need images... simple images showing two characters discussing a situation in an otherwise unremarkable environment should be avoided. Of course, there are also grey areas... if an otherwise uninteresting image is necessary for a character page but could also fit on an episode page or vice-versa, then the image should be reused as much as possible. The community should ultimately use its judgement about whether or not certain images are required. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 18:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::Would it be possible to start some image categories (Possibly under the supercategory Category:Memory Alpha images) to help track these? If we start categorizing our images, it might be easier to see which ones we have the most of, especially if we sort them by series or seasons. ::Another suggestion would be to use the "what links here" of individual episodes to try and identify all the images cited as being from that episode -- to add them to the summary, so as to make the existing images more useful, and lessen the likelihood of someone uploading a similar and superfluous image. If it wouldn't be possible to put all the images from one episode on the episode page itself, perhaps a list of them instead, so they will be immediately accessible to a user that wants to use the image for the summary, or a related aritcle. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 18:13, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) :::Creating image categories is a great idea and one which I'd wholeheartedly support... while we have the search function, it isn't of the greatest use when it comes to finding images. In addition to series and seasons, individual character, ship, planet, etc. categories would also be helpful. -- SmokeDetector47 // ''talk'' 18:25, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::::Memory Alpha:Category suggestions -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk :Regarding the initial topic, I also feel that limiting some pages to just 2 or 3 images is a bit strict, especially in the cases of primary or strong secondary characters. However, using the Guinan reference and despite my concerns in her talk page, quantity isn't so much the issue here as is the relevancy. There really should only be maybe 6 good images on her page: 1-headshot, 1-w/ Picard, 1-w/ Q, 1-w/ Ro and one of her in the 19th century. The necessity of the remaining "interaction images", to me, remain doubtful. The same can be said about the multiple images of interaction with the same character -- Guinan w/ Picard (x3)??. Now, granted, her relationships with the other crewmembers were important...they were never exactly 'life-affirming', at least compared to the more 'emotional' interactions that she had with say, Picard (love) and Q (hate). :In much the same way, I don't think we need images of every primary character interacting with every other primary character, unless there is a strong or, at least, a "meaningful to the characters' development"-type relationship between the two. But also, having "individual images" of a character without anyone else in it can also, just as easily, be placed on another characters page without requiring images of the two characters interacting. Looking at the Leonard McCoy page, for example, there are images of notable individuals mentioned on his page without him actually being in a picture with them. By cutting back on "interaction images" and sticking to "singles" -- we can cut back on clogging up the image archive. :On a somewhat related topic, what are the feelings on occurances of two characters interacting from two different series, in terms of priority? These seem somewhat important to those who are interested in crossover appearances. I'm thinking mostly TOS with TNG/DS9/VOY, like McCoy/Data, Scotty/LaForge, Picard/Kirk, Spock, Sarek, Janeway/Sulu, etc. -- or, in the case of what I had in mind: Guinan/Chekov. Although, and quite understandably, their interact was just a brief one-shot deal, it still does make for a good Guinan character-time_period/age-reference, as well as another somewhat rare crossover meet-n-greet. I think age reference images are important for articles, especially when we can see a character in a time or at a age that is not commonly viewed - the young characters from "Rascals", or the severely aged characters from "The Deadly Years" would be prime examples of significant character variations. Granted, in the case of Guinan, her age doesnt show, but the fact that we see her with someone from another time period conveys the same idea. :Moving along, I agree with SmokeDetector's analysis of the situation, and to some extent, I have made rudimentary attempts to consolidate and post for deletion similar image redundancies. However, we tend to be pack rats around here, and everyone is afraid to throw away images. The fact of the matter is, they can always be replaced -- so why keep them around when they serve no purpose in the here-and-now? :Finally, regarding the need to combine multiple used images (re: Fredrickson/tug), admitted, I am probably the one who uploaded the Fredrickson/tug images (and likely other superflous ones) -- mind you, at a time before I realized how fragged our image archive was -- I am also one of the few consciously making an effort to correct such oversights. I've made a few forays into that realm, and have removed several TNG images that identified specific ships that were, in fact, all the same shots of stock footage. For example, there were only two notable shots of the Excelsior class along side the Enterprise, but these two shots were used something like 11 different time to represent something like 8 different ships. I believe at one point, each of those 8 ships had its own individual image, each nearly identical to the next. To remedy this, I established Image:Excelsior starboard of Galaxy.jpg and Image:Excelsior port of Galaxy.jpg -- restoring a respectable amount of MA image archive space. --Gvsualan 13:47, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::::I've attempted to do something like this also -- to identify commonly reused shots and utilize them for ALL the occasions they were used (ex.: Image:Enterprise-hit-by-weapon.jpg) -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk Backround information MA needs more backround information on production, the actors, the character apperences, ... I want to know in which TNG-episode Data did not appear. I read it was only one episode he didn't appear. Can you help me? I would say, let's make such a list with the appearences like in the article 'Beverly Crusher' at the end of each article on a character. I think I would be good to make a notice to every article of an episode, when it was filmed/produced. :In response to your question about Data, his only non-appearance in TNG was the episode "Family". Randee15 22:45, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC) ''Standards and practices'' on talk pages As a small reminder to everyone, the following are two standards as defined on : :Indent posts for organization. The first contributor to a talk page should have no indentation in the message. The next person starts their message with one colon (:), and the third person uses two colons (::), and so on. If the first person replies to the message again, he or she uses the same indentation for their subsequent messages as for the first message. This method helps distinguish who is saying what. :Add new posts to the bottom of the thread. The further down the contribution is in the thread, the later it was posted. It would be nice if we all could try to use the same set of standards. Adding your reply somewhere in the middle using arbitrary indentation works for small discussions between 2-3 participants, but gets unreadable pretty quickly if more people are involved in a longer discussion. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 18:19, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) ::I always thought it was standard to use another colons when responding to the paragraph above... Thanks for pointing it out. (I could have just read the rules, of course..) Ottens 18:33, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC) Naming images I was trying to upload an image of Fer'at, but MA was always changing the title of the image to Fer\'at. What do I do to avoid this problem? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 13:19, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Just remove the apostrophe and call it Image:Ferat.jpg. Other than your typical ABCs and 123s, the only other characters we should use are the '-' _''' '''( and )'. Its the easiest way to keep the unnecessary characters, like '/, from working their way into the files. --Gvsualan 13:26, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) I successfully uploaded the image, but it won't appear on the article page when I preview it. --Defiant | ''Talk'' 13:30, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) :I'm not sure, try saving it and I'll see if I can see it. --Gvsualan 13:34, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) I've done that. --Defiant | ''Talk'' 13:39, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) : It must be the filename, because i was able to place an image of something else in there and it showed up fine. --Gvsualan 13:43, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) Glitch I encountered a Database error that read: A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: INSERT INTO `objectcache` (keyname,value,exptime) VALUES('enmemoryalpha:messages:Sitenotice','+?2?RR?�\0','2005-06-15 13:55:52') from within function "MediaWikiBagOStuff:_doquery". MySQL returned error "1062: Duplicate entry 'enmemoryalpha:messages:Sitenotice' for key 1 (brussels.wikia.com)". Also, I keep seeing database errors like this one when using MA. How common is this problem, and what do I do to avoid it? --Defiant | ''Talk'' 13:58, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) Star Trek uniforms I think we should add a table of all uniforms shown troughout the series to our starfleet uniforms article like we have for the rank insignia page. We should start today! (unsigned) :Dress unfiroms, variants, ... The material the uniforms were made of for the series and mivies. More backround information like an unregistrated user wants to have for all articles, especially for the characters articles (when the appeared, didn't apeear, ... sa.) I think the starfleet uniform article should be expanded because there is less information about in on the internet and we have to be "THE" Star Trek source on the net. (unsigned) Files and Data From Other Websites I have looked at various other star Trek websites and seen a files and artciles that would be nice on Memory Alpha. For example: *Pictures *Episode Summaries (Most of ours aren't finished or even started) *Video Clips *Star Trek Music I am not sure what the policy here is for adding these to the database. It never says in any of the user guidelines or copyright polocies. If these were allowed or were allowed under the right circumstances, Memory Alpha would be greatly expanded, and would have more than just text. (And a few pictures) Could someone please post a reply to this explaning what I can and can not do regarding this matter. I just want to help this website as much as I can. : The true intentions of Memory Alpha is to be as '''original' as possible''. We have strict policies about copying the works of others -- such as episode summaries. Several pages cover this, including: Memory Alpha:Copyrights. :The use of images is addressed here: Memory_Alpha:Image_use_policy. Personally, I think it is preferable that the users provide their own images (as far as ones that can be captured from DVD) in the interest of avoiding any conflicts with third parties, but also in terms of keeping it "original". You can also go to Memory Alpha:Requested pictures and Memory Alpha:Requested Articles if there is something you specifically have in mind. :Adding video and music (other than the themes) at the moment is not exactly practical at the moment. In fact, on the upload page it explicitly states: "Movies are not currently permitted on Memory Alpha due to bandwidth and file space considerations" -- as well as other copyright concerns. :Above all there is no race to finish this website! So just watch your Trek and contribute from there, perfection is not required. --Gvsualan 19:32, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC) Mis-use of PNA's Just a reminder that when posting and related boilerplates, that you specify what attention in required on the talk page. There have been several pages with 's posted, but with no explaination offered. The boilerplate clearly states to do this, as does the link, also included on the boilerplate, to Memory Alpha:Pages needing attention. --Gvsualan 22:58, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Keep in mind that "pna-cite" and "pna-unformatted" are self-explanatory, and may be used without adding any talk -- but if you feel an article needs attention, any input as to how it could be improved can be added whenever you use the "pna", "pna-inaccurate" or "pna-incomplete" messages. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 14:53, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) Unidentified aliens Do we have a page especially designated for all of the various unidentified aliens (either by name or species) we've see throughout Star Trek? Or, should we start a page called Unidentified aliens (comparable to something like Unnamed Romulans)? --Gvsualan 17:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Sounds like a great plan! There must be loads of them out there somewhere, for example Tiron, and Abdon. zsingaya 17:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)